Wednesday, June 12, 2002

802.11 - Planet Philadelphia conference 6/12/2002 - Session #3- Track 3: Extending the WLAN space: Roaming across heterogeneous environments. Moderator - David Webster, Editor, Wireless Network News Mike Ritter, CTO Mobility Network Systems Core capability is building IP radio access networks. Universal Access = Roaming + Handover Roaming Roam between Operators. Integration of AAA workd with SIM, SMS, HLR world. Provide cellular customers with roaming into the WISP world. Where are we today: GPRS is just now implementing GRX roaming between operators. WLAN operators are just now working through basic roaming issues. Based on IP exchanges. Heterogeneous handover is still not deployed. Mobile IP will be a solution - but not built for micro-mobility. 3GPP/2 has defined and working handover protocols. Mobile IP was proposed to solve a probem of allowing a machine to roam onto multiple networks - really means a subnet handover. This is a good presentation but going way too fast for me to take notes on.   Hong Jiang, CTO, Broadwave   Carol Politi, VP Marketing, Megisto Systems Builds advanced services infrastructure for mobile operators. Mobile Operators must offer high-value services across al access networks - these are the same challenges faced by any telecom carrier - bundling, get stickier. Extending the value premise: WLAN roaming. Integrated subscriber management and billing. OTS hardware for WLAN. Secure air interface. Integration Options Consolidate billing and authentication. Challenge - carriers see limited revenue upside. Tenuous business case. no kidding. Consolidation in the Enterprise. Challenge - limts customers to enterprise, sevices not integrated. Consolidate at core services level. Challenges - requires advanced mobile core network. Why do carriers want to do this: Seemless service delivery Integrated 0 access network-aware charging. Transparent terminal interaction Solutions Integrate Solutions at the Core IETF and 3GPP mobility and security standards Common services core 10:10:22 AM    comment []

802.11 - Planet Philadelphia conference 6/12/2002 - Session #2- Track 1: Public Hotspots Evolving a Viable Business Model Arturo Pereyra, Co-Founder WiFi Metro WiFi Metro has 60 Hotspots - launched January of this year (?). Hotspot market - 2,000 hotspots today. 25,000 hotspots by 2005. By 2006, 25% oof business travelers will be WiFi enabled.  I think that is a very low estimate. Business Model - value created and owned along the business chain. Everyone says that. Provide value to location partners, and roaming partners. Provide location based content to landlords. Of course you should do this, but is this part of the fundamental business model pillar? Need to execute on a low cost model. Very True - there is not a lot of margin in the hotspot biz. Will be in 8 Tier-1 Metro markets by the end of the year. Daniel Lowden, VP Marketing, Wayport Supports Roaming agreements - certainly a different perspective than T-Mobile. Factoid - NASA is the current largest user of WiFi. Markets: Corporate and Enterprises Education Home Free Networks (drives awareness of WiFi) Where the business traveler needs the connectivity - hotels and airports. Business travelers are premium customers - hotels and airports are their habitats. They want high speed data - yes we do! Multiple revenue opportunities: Hotel guestrooms. Hotel common areas. Hotel Meeting space. Airport - WiFi coverage at gates. Airport - Laptop lanes Barriers to Entry: Complicate business - lots of companies in this sector have gone out of business. All about providing value to the property partner. Providers must have: Must have a 24/7 call center. Must provide network monitoring across the entire network - take care of the customer. Monitor down to the hotel room level. Security and abuse management - implemented a fraud detection system. Roaming services. Talk to the T-Mobile representative. 400 hotels nationwide. 4 all wireless airports. Some number of airports with Laptop lanes. Majority of hotel customers connect on the daily connect plan. Wayport also has prepaid cards and monthly membership programs. Wayport is doing co-promotions with Microsoft, IBM, and Dell. Wayport is up to 270,000 connections per quarter. Good volume. Rick Ehrlinspiel, President Surf and Sip Giving a history of the evolution of their business model. Definitely grassroots.d Building networks is their model - don't want to sell memberships. They want to sell to Boingo, iPass, etc. Other providers are also interested in Surf and Sip's back office - Network Monitoring etc. People will pay for QoS and footprint. Market surverys of providers - 2 common responses:  1) Everyone knows this is going to be a huge market. 2) But when is it going to happen? Q & A Factoid - I believe it was Surf and Sip - 85% of usage by an end customer is from one location. Surf and Sip Comment: there's no such thing as owning the venue - another WiFi provider can setup across the street. Business Evolution: WiFi Metro guy - Business has to be build through revenues. Capital is no longer cheap. WiFi is on track to be profitable in San Fran. by the end of the summer. Wayport - hotels cover capital expense. Business model has to make sense. Cost and revenue growth. Surf and Sip - different market these days. Have a revenue stream and watch expense. My comment: These are not strategic responses, these are day to day tactical survival responses. They're true, but they're not the evolutionary visision. Top Three Challenges: Surf and Sip Understanding what your customer will pay for. Location acquistion. Roaming and security. Wayport Ensure scalable network. Support network end-to-end - monitoring, marketing, etc. Surf and Sip Make sure venue doesn't bring network down. Not sure what the other two issues were. What's the advantage to a large carrier to acquiring one these companies Surf and Sip - they already have the service rolled out WiFi - venue access. Different and complex new business. Carriers are not used to technical customer support and billing. We are. Wayport - Quick low cost deployment of hotspots - much quicker and cheaper than carriers. 7:45:20 AM    comment []

802.11 - Planet Philadelphia conference 6/12/2002 - Session #1- Track 4: Carriers get into 802.11: Will they catalyze your business or crush it? Alan Reiter, Moderator. Carlos Cassisa, Director Business Development, Telia Homerun What Telia does: WLAN. Fixed Line. They have a lot of hotspots - roadside service areas, hotels (20,000 hotel rooms). GSM network. Any integration between Telia and Homerun - not in billing. Separate bills for both services. Joe Korb, President GoAmerica Communications Corp Started out as a wireless internet carrier. Current focus is on large enterprises who have mobile workforces. Leslie Stixrood, Executive Director and GM, T-Mobile Wireless Broadband Status of MobileStar and VoiceStream merger: At the end of the honeymoon stage - working to integrate products and push "the good news" out to the enterprise stage. Target expansion markets - airline clubs - most utilized space around. Another few "high value" venues that were NOT named on their shortlist. Billing integration has not taken place - another 9 months to go. Most complicated piece of the integration. Customer service is still separate - I believe Leslie said that's because the customer service is so specific for WLAN. Q & A for the panel: Question - will the business model for T-Mobile open up - will T-Mobile enter into roaming agreements with other WLAN carriers? Answer - No. They think that there is not a compelling need for true roaming because the spectrum is unlicensed and their network is easily accessible. Boy - is that a disaster!!!!! As a customer, I don't want more than one WLAN provider. A follow up question from the audience, asked that very question. T-Mobile thinks that a credit card bill provides one bill. I know that personally don't want to manage more than one WiFi paying carrier. Question - will the larger carriers take over the WiFi hotspot business. Answer - If there are large capital requirements, then carriers with deep pockets will enter into the market. But carriers are used to owning the spectrum so this is a different business model. Carriers also provide QoS. There was actually quite a bit of discussion on this one and I didn't get much of it. sigh... Question - Are are the compelling applications that will drive mass adoption by the public. Answer - the killer app is the desktop - mobile desktop that goes anywhere seemlessly. Also location based services. Alan - he likes WiFi because it started out on the correct devices - latop/PDA. Unlike WEP on cellphones. Question - when does this become a massive backhaul issue? Answer -  Carriers (T-Mobile) are watching this closely. I think this issue has already been addressed by cellular industry - albeit on a smaller scale. Bandwidth requirements are definitely less for voice than for data. Comment from Carlo - adoption rates for cellular were intially slow before it took off. WiFi is popular, but it still takes time for the technology to take hold and the apps to be developed. Leslie disagrees a bit - from the T-Mobile perspective WiFi has generated a ton of interest. There is a difference between interest and actual revenue producing models. Question - Have Carriers come to GoAmerica asking about wireless Lans. Answer - Joe stated "no." The carriers are looking at their own networks. Steps to discourage use - non-integrated billing. That's not a step taken to discourage. It's a step NOT taken because of complexities. He equates the billing issue to the entertainment sectors attempt at copyright - from a customer perspective. Integrating billing is expensive and time consuming. There has to be a pay-off. Which, in my opinion there is, BUNDLING. 6:25:58 AM    comment []

802.11 - Planet Philadelphia conference 6/12/2002 - Keynote #3 - Warren Sly, Director of Marketing, RadioFrame Networks Convergence and Mobility, Carriers and Management Factoid: Warren, in a previous career, introduced Perrier to the US. Dual Band networks are being touted by manufacturers as the ultimate solution. Carriers have a different view. WLAN's have been around for 20 years - AMPS. Sprint and another company. They forecast that users would local and there would be at most 1 million customers by 2000. Carrier View System Migration Scale - back in 1990 only Graig McCaw was thinking nationally. Consolidation of telecom companies. Billing - one customer has 8 billing systems. Back office pain in the net. Have to come to terms with billing. Security/Fraud. What Carrier Know: WAN Overlays, Overlays: GPRS on top of GSM on top of CDPD on top of IS-136. Data takes the back seat on voice QoS.  Interesting audience poll: Everyone has cell phones. Only a few of us would pay $10 more month for better service. 50% are satisfied with their quality. QoS Voice Key: Landline yardstic - good quality - always on. Hihgh expectations for mobility Result of these requirements/expectations, carriers have compulsive need to own spectrum. RadioFrame does both GPRS and WLAN. A carrier model and there's not a carrier in the world who is not interested in WLAN. The speaker thinks that VoWLAN in the entererprise is a real threat to Carriers. Hmmm...I hate to be a dinosaur, but I still have major doubts concerning VoWLAN. Carriers "Converged" Business Strategy - enterprises can use Carriers to help implement a converged network strategy including VoWLAN. A Converged Strategy for Carriers Carrier builds out base that improves mobile voice for enterprises (I don't think I got this right). On top of that build out a WLAN for a few extra dollars. For a few dollars more, the carriers can build out hotspots - or WLAN roaming agreements with 3rd party hotspots. Carriers are not real expert at building out new networks that aren't directly related to their core business. Landlords are incorrectly assuming there's gold in hotspots - O'Hare and United Airlines both want cuts on the hots spots. This is such a problem. Converged applications across networks - this is seemless roaming between 802.11 and GPRS. Enterprise WLAN Requirements: Single Network WLAN Future proof. Differentiated Access. Simplified management provisioning. Less prone to power outage - entire network is up during power outage. High Voice and Data Qos. ConvergedWLAN + WAN (operator partner) Folks want to carry a single phone rather two - one phone for both inside the office and outside the office Seemless roaming between networks for voice and data. Are two radios really enough: Voice WAN IDEN GSM+GPRS+EDGE CDMA 3G (UMTS) WLAN 802.11b 802.11a RadioFrame's access points seem to have these integrated radios. Wonder just how many radios per box? Manage AP's as an entire system - not individual entities. Single fire wall, security, etc. using a gateway type product - a la Nomadix (or RadioFrame). This is the way to go. Why anyone would do this through an AP is beyond me. A group of managed AP's is much more suitable for outsouring. Light Buib just went on. VoWLAN can succeed w/out full participation of carrier - back to the single handset thing for data and voice. oh yeah. Analysts now want to know: "What is VoWLAN going to do to Carriers." VoWLAN will first succeed in the Enterprise environment. Multiprotocol Call Router - very good slide. 5:31:21 AM    comment []

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